A Dream Come True

It's been a long 5 years since I've updated this blog. I'm still alive and well and occasionally still working on my family history. Every now and then, when something interesting happens (like the publishing of the U.S. 1950 census😉), I do delve back into my research long enough to update the records in my Legacy database. And then I'm done for a while. 

Yesterday, I experienced another of those "something interesting happens" events.

Let me start by explaining that I had no birth records for either of my grandmothers. Grandma Carrie was born in Detroit, at home, at a time when it wasn't required to register the birth of a child in Michigan. I've searched high and low with the city, county, and state and there's no record for her. I do have her baptismal record, which gives her birth date, so I'm grateful to the Catholic church for that much. But I've given up on finding anything more "official" for her birth. 

Grandma Sophie was born in Poland. She was the second born of six children. Her older sister as well as her younger siblings were all born in Wojnicz, Poland. I have all of their birth/baptismal records as well as the marriage of the parents, their birth records, etc etc. I knew the date that Sophie was born from her immigration paperwork as well as from her marriage record here in Detroit. Everything listed Wojnicz, Poland as her place of birth.

I have looked at countless online data bases, wrote to the civil records office in Poland, wrote to the church where all her siblings were baptized, and searched the LDS films for that period of time in that parish and there is no record of her birth to be found. The LDS film photographs of the church registry book showed pages had been torn out for the time period she would have been born, but the diocesan copy was in tact. Still no Sophie to be found on or around her birthdate. 

A few weeks ago, before Christmas I think, a dear friend of mine, Valerie Koselka (President of the Polish Genealogical Society of Michigan), posted a link on Facebook for a new collection of Polish Church Records (on FamilySearch.org). Yesterday I finally got around to checking it out. And I found the elusive record I've been searching for since day one of my genealogy research back in 1995... a record of my Grandma Sophie's birth/baptism. Please clap your hands, raise a glass in toast, and dance the HAPPY DANCE with me!!! 😁😁😁

Years ago I'd given up on finding a record of Sophie's birth but I had a persistent daydream about one day entering her name online and finding that record. And that's exactly what happened. The record I found was just an index and the information for Sophie was a close match but not exact. There was a village name listed but it wasn't one I'd ever heard of. The village was near Wojnicz where all the other siblings were born, but it was in a different Gmina (administration district) with a different parish church. I had done a concentric search of villages with Wojnicz as the center but didn't come up with anything and finally gave up. I'd mostly searched villages south and west of Wojnicz, moving in the direction where Sophie's father's family was from. But I did search other villages around the area too. Wouldn't you know it...the village where she was born is northeast of Wojnicz just beyond where I'd searched.🙄 I guess I just gave up too soon. Anyway, last evening I ran over to my local Family History/LDS location and looked up the record and voila! Found it! 

Yay and thank you to my friend Valerie for posting that link!👏 Yay and thank you to the folks from the LDS who photographed and indexed the Polish church records! 👏 And yay and thank you to any/all of my friends who are reading this post! 👏 Don't give up the search!!!

Oh, and here's the link for that Polish church record collection:

https://www.familysearch.org/search/collection/4135958?fbclid=IwAR2eleYQjnrkSDailZQPviVqdmL8nknps_1I23wvTd_jFAA3YzYQNlgL1PU

Good luck!

New Year 2018, Looking Back and Looking Forward

Every now and then it's a good idea to take a step back and look at where you're at relative to where you've been and where you want to be. The beginning of a new year is a popular time to do that. With that in mind, here's my take on where I'm at regarding my genealogy...

My goal last year was to write up a family history and I chose my Mizera family line to start with. My intentions were good. I thought I had a good plan although I didn't get far before the plan fell apart. I tried to construct a new plan but that didn't work either. Then I got distracted with other things and never got back to trying to write up the family history.

I did add some names to my family history database last year, some from the Mizera line and some from the Lisowski line. I found some new (to me) sources for information about the lives and times of my families in Poland. And I hired some Polish researchers to help me with finding records and translating them. So that's all good. I helped some friends research their families too. I feel good about that. So I did have some accomplishments last year to further my genealogical journey.

So that's where I'm at looking back on my genealogy-related activities in the past year. Very recently, I came to the realization that I'm not really interested/motivated in writing up my family history. That was a bit of an eye opener for me. I enjoyed writing in the past. I have written two NANOWRIMO novellas, and I've written blog posts about my genealogy, digital scrapbooking, and photography for several years. I remember the writing process to be quite enjoyable to me. But somewhere along the way I lost interest in writing. I used to think of creative writing as one of my hobbies. I don't anymore. It may well be that I just have too many "balls in the air" so to speak. When I make choices of what to do with my hobby time, I never choose genealogy-related writing anymore. Notice I said "genealogy-related" writing. I still write every day but it's rarely about genealogy.

The most recent hobby I've picked up was bullet journaling. I've been doing that for about 15 months now. It's not creative writing the way I do it, it's more like a combination to-do list, planner, tracker, and diary. And the diary entries are most often about the activities of the day. I do spend a good bit of time decorating the pages of my journal (yep, this is old school journaling with pen and paper, not digital) and in that way it's been a good creative outlet for me. But, it takes up a good bit of my hobby time. And it's not genealogy related.

And then there's my painting. The amount of time I put into painting hasn't been as much as I would have liked either. Whenever you try to learn something new you need to apply yourself... practice, practice, practice. I need more practice time painting if I'm going to improve. But the more hobby time I spend painting, the less time I have for genealogy research or writing. It's always a trade off.

The one hobby that I have spent what I consider a fair amount of time on this past year is my photography. I've worked at it and I've improved as a result. I'm happy about that! My photography isn't in any way genealogy-related. It does get me up and moving; most often outdoors, in nature. And that's good for my creativity, my mood, my spirit, and my mind. So it's all good.

So that pretty much sums up a review of all my hobbies over the past year. Going forward, I need to find a way to manage my time better, I guess. I want to do it all but then there's the grocery shopping, house cleaning, bill paying, tax return preparation, vacation planning, house projects (for 2 houses) to manage, etc. And that stuff has a way of interfering with my hobby time all too often, LOL!

Looking forward to 2018, I don't have any specific goals for my genealogy hobby time. I want to continue my research... that's the most fun part of genealogy for me. It's like solving puzzles and I love puzzles. Organizing what I've already found is boring. Writing up the family history doesn't sound like fun anymore. Just an obligation. Quite frankly, I'd rather be painting, or photographing extreme weather, wildlife, beautiful landscapes, butterflies and flowers. But I'm not giving up on my genealogy hobby altogether. I can't see myself ever doing that.

I'm entertaining a dream of one day merging all of my hobbies together... that would require a trip to Poland, so I'll have to overcome my resistance to flying. But I'd love to photograph and journal about the beautiful churches where my ancestors were baptized, married, and buried and the prayer/adoration chapels along the roads to the villages where my ancestors toiled in the soil to put food on the table and a roof over their heads. I'd love to see the parks, the country fields of wheat, the train stations, the castles, the museums, the amber beaches, the snow-covered mountain ranges, the folk art and the folk. My folk. My people. And then come home and paint it all! And then I'd like to put together a photo book of the trip as a companion piece to the family history that I will no doubt be motivated to write after experiencing all that inspiring stuff, LOL! That's my dream. Some day, but not likely in 2018.

Jachowicz, Poet of Poland, Poet of Children

SUNSET

The sun went down, with it one more day has passed away;--
The church-bell heralded its death through the twilight grey;
Tomorrow, at the same time and hour, with bell-tones clear,
     Another day shall disappear:
     And after that a third, and so
     Our whole life day by day shall go
An old man thought, --up and down he paced with feeble tread.
What does the old man mutter? the thoughtless children said.

The Old Man

Gaily with your pastimes you amuse yourselves today,
But your life is fleeting imperceptibly away.
See you the sunset, children fair?
Only look! see over there:
The clouds with red and gold inwrought,--
Their play a moment was forgot.
And while they looked with earnestness
The old man spoke of sinfulness
Repentance and a saving grace,
How swiftly day to day gives place;
And of the vanities of earth,
They understood not then its worth.
In riper years alone their might
The sunset shone upon their sight.
They thought of what the old man said many years ago,
And finer feelings filled their hearts all with a holy glow.
The world's snares deceived them no more,
Love of wealth and glory was o'er;
Flown away as if with the wind,
And if for earthly joys they pined
The old man's sunset crossed their mind.

-- by Stanisław Jachowicz (1796-1857)

I've chosen this poem for the Great Genealogy Poetry Challenge because the author, Stanisław Jachowicz, was born and spent his early years in the same section of Poland (Galicia) where many of my ancestors lived. I feel a tie with him.

Jachowicz is best known and revered for his poetry for children. "His fables and proverbs can be found in almost every house in Poland." The heroes of his stories and poems were not animals or trees but children. There is much wisdom to be found in his words, as is evident in the poem above.

Stanisław Jachowicz
Born: April 17, 1796 in Dzikow, Poland.
Died: December 24, 1857 in Warsaw, Poland.

Sunset by Stanisław Jachowicz. From Poets and Poetry of Poland by Paul Soboleski. Knight and Leonard Printers, 1881.

St Lawrence Catholic Church, Wojnicz, Poland

My family has practiced the Catholic faith as far back as they appear in written records. And they practiced their faith in Poland up until the last 100 years or so when some family members immigrated to the U.S. and to nearby European countries. Those who came to the U.S. as well as those who stayed in Poland continued to practice their Catholic faith until their deaths. And they passed the Catholic teachings on to their children. So I come from a long established line of Polish Catholics.

My maternal grandmother came from the town of Wojnicz, Poland. It’s located in the southern part of Poland, Tarnow District, Malopolska Province. Back in the days when Poland was partitioned, it would have been in the Galcian (Austrian) section. The town of Wojnicz currently has a population of 3,500 people (2008). Back when my grandmother lived there the population was 1,683 (1880-1902), so it has roughly doubled in size since her birth in 1894.

I have come across a number of different dates for the founding of the city of Wojnicz, all in the 1200s. The first written reference to the city was in 1278 but it is thought that a Catholic parish existed there from the late 11th century. In 1465, Bishop Jan Lutek of Brzezie was the local provost. After a time, the church at Wojnicz was elevated to the rank of Collegiate (c. 1621) but the Collegiate status was removed by the Austrian government in 1786 (while Poland was partitioned).

The original church building was referenced in texts in 1325-1327. It was remodeled and added to in the mid 15th century. That church became St Lawrence the Martyr and was destroyed by fire on March 23, 1752. The entire original wooden structure was destroyed including the nave ceiling and roof. All that survived was the contents of the vault. The church was rebuilt in 1753.

In 1914, the church was again destroyed, this time as a result of war (WWI). Rebuilding took until 1920. My grandmother left Wojnicz for America in late 1913. It must have been heart breaking for her to learn the fate of her beloved church so soon after she left. It was the place where generations of her family before her worshiped and prayed, were baptized and married, and where they were finally laid to rest.

In 1930 the church was expanded to accommodate more pews. In the years 1958-1960 the front tower was added and it was architecturally refined 1997-2001. There were a number of other building improvements made over time as well. Originally the church had one nave, now it has three. There are chapels in both the north and south naves. I can’t help but wonder if my grandmother would even recognize it now. But expansion was needed as the population of the area grew. There were also additional churches built in surrounding towns to accommodate the need.

St Lawrence the Martyr Church in Wojnicz was more than just a church. In the 15th and 16th centuries it also served as a school. The first known teacher, Stanislaw, was referenced back in 1439. This church in Wojnicz served as a learning center for clergy from the Krakow and surrounding areas. It had a fine collection of books, most theological.

The parish of St Lawrence also has it’s own cemetery with a chapel. The cemetery is localed on Tarnowska Street, a ways east of the Rynek (city square).

Below you will find an aerial map of Wojnicz (thank you, Google!). The green arrow points to St Lawrence the Martyr Church. The yellow rectangle is the city square. The red circle indicates Zamoscie Street, the area where my Molecki and Kielbis families lived. The blue arrow pointing west on Krakowska Street indicates the area where my Bober family line lived. And the purple circle indicates the location of the parish cemetery. I have many more family lines from Wojnicz and surrounding towns but I only know the house numbers not the street names so I can’t pinpoint them on this map.

I put together a couple of scrapbook pages with photos of St Lawrence the Martyr Church and cemetery in Wojnicz. I am fortunate to have a dear cousin who took the photos for me (+ one from Wikipedia).

I am ever so grateful to Google Translate. It continues to be my most used tool for genealogy research. It goes without saying that I am also hugely grateful to my Mizera cousins in Poland who traveled to my family's ancestral villages to photograph that which I cannot do for myself.

St Lawrence the Martyr parish has a wonderful website with virtual tours of the interior and exterior of the church as well as the cemetery. You don't need to read Polish to navigate and enjoy them. See the beauty!

Interior of St Lawrence 
Altar of St Lawrence
View from the choir loft
Exterior of St Lawrence
Wojnicz Parish Cemetery

[Submitted to the September 4, 2011 edition of the Carnival of Genealogy.]

Wanting Poland

Here we are, half way through Polish Heritage Month, and I have a special treat for you. A cousin I met for the first time this past summer wrote a lovely poem inspired by her trip to Poland in 2005. With her permission I am including it below. Thank you for sharing this with me dear Carolyn!

Enjoy!

Wanting Poland

       

by carolyn kieber grady 
  

stirred by a rhythm of wheels on rails

        mesmerized by flashes of Poland

                before the euro

                land of family farms

    one or two dairy cows tied

down with chain  and stake

        fenced plots in community gardens

left by Soviet workers

            flowering lilies

        lavender lungwort     violets

run-down stations

            poppies punctuating weeds

    little red exclamation marks in wild fields       

and along the tracks

starry ox-eye daisies march leaf to leaf

at times the past painfully whirrs

this land resisted

        monarchy

created the “free and equal” nobility

a parliament presaging

    values now held in the western world

        the world that has held me

for so long

trying to come out of my stupor

    I touch my lineage

a genealogy stretching beyond

        simple genetics

           

in a rickety first-class compartment

I drink to the Medieval Noble’s toast:

        “Let us love one another”

I am America but

I no longer feel like a foreigner

        as Zubrówka vodka

distilled with the heady buffalo grass

from the Bialowieza forest

    sinks into my bones

    liquid fire burns sip after sensual sip

my heart splits

    wooden grain of tracks ring

        into light and longing

connecting with my ghosts

    and my grandmothers’ ghosts

the heartland of a feral country

        humming

wanting to sing but not knowing

the words to the song

        mile after alien mile

           

gazing out the stuck window

into recognition of  parallel lives

        the Polonaise mesmerizes

the triple meter resonating

lifts my impoverished spirit

       

wandering north

    half-lost in Malbork

         a thirteenth-century monastery

built by crusading knights

strong enough to defend against

    any invader crazy enough to scale the thick brick

        everywhere iron gates

and grace

here lay impenetrable

whose heart do I defend

and what am I protecting

dropping the warrior stance

I rest against the fortress

faint from the heat of the day

momentarily wiser and wordless     

       

carrying bags heavy with the cargo of the free world

        the old totalitarian regime has fallen

I try harder to draw

the landscape inside of me

sweet benediction

for the first time I smile

there are no worries in this world

drawn to Czestochowa

Jasna Gora — the Bright Hill

the Black Madonna’s eyes  

sad for centuries

her wounds unhealing

the Mother knew what was to come

she weeps and weeps

at Mass I kneel

beside girls in Communion dresses

        and moms with orange tipped hair

    familiar prayers in a language

        I don’t really understand

    I cross myself

buy another elm wood rosary

            count the decades and ask for help

        I say another Hail Mary

        finger wooden beads like a gypsy’s worn lamp

and find my way into this continent of hope

pushing from the green oceans

a heavy door cracks open

into a dim castle cafe

candle flames’ shadows play on walls

hungry again I order

borscht, pierogies, zywiec

        satisfying

    in the way food or a country can be

when prepared with care

entering steep Southern hills    

I float beneath clouds on the Dunajec River

in a hundred year old raft

through a granite gorge etched with eagle wings

                my flimsy umbrella pops open

rain batters and rocks

forcefully I swallow fear:

    there is another country

                I want to speak this religion

share my gods

        perhaps then this aching

    would soften

a world would begin        boundary-less

    the spirits of the past slip into this future

the stories of  this country

         mirror mine

                always the same:

        wanting         wanting

~ for David Citino (1947-2005)

Legend of the Devil's Transport

Years ago, as legend has it, a castle was to be built in Melsztyn, near Wojnicz. Stones for the foundation had to be located and suitable ones were found in the Holy Cross Mountains (Gór Świętokrzyskie). Transporting the stones from the mountains to Melsztyn was a monumental task. So a request was made to the witches on Bald Mountain (Łysej Górze) in order to achieve this. When all of the conditions were discussed and agreed upon a contract was written up on buffalo skin. It went like this: "We the witches of Bald Mountain commit to the transfer of quartz stones by our brethren of devils, headed by the chieftain Boruta, to the area where a castle will be constructed at Melsztyn . In return for delivering the stones we will receive the rights to take from the fields of the Dunajec Valley all the wicker we need to make the brooms we need for our flights. If even one stone doesn't make it to the construction site, we will not claim payment for those previously delivered. The deadline for implementation is one year from the date this contract is signed." The agreement was signed and sealed in the autumn and the plan was executed.

So the transportation of the foundation stones began. It was hard work that only took place at night and during the new moon. Despite this, construction of the castle at Melsztyn made progress. The owner of Melsztyn brought in stones for the walls. He had previously placed signs directing which way to go so that none would get lost. The devil force transported the foundation stones through the air in a straight line from the Holy Cross Mountains to Melsztyn. The route ran 2 km west of the marketplace at Wojnicz.

One night there was a horrible noise, like a hurricane, and following that the great stench of sulfur and tar. The residents of Wojnicz and the surrounding areas would not venture far from their homes. They were afraid and didn't like the terrible odor.

In mid-September of the following year the days were hot and you could feel a storm approaching. Lightning streaked all across the eastern sky. It was a rare phenomenon indeed for a storm to approach from the east! Hurricane winds sprang up and that night no one in Wojnicz slept. The sound of loud rolling thunder along with almost constant lightning made the villagers very fearful. Around midnight they heard a terrible roar but there was no lightning. Then suddenly everything became quiet. The clouds parted and the stars were shining once again. The terrible smell was no more. The merchants and craftsmen of Wojnicz immediately left for the fair in Krakow to buy more goods. The castle gates opened, the drawbridge was lowered, and the last of the carts and carriages left the city.

The road was bumpy and there were some puddles after the rain. But the earth quickly absorbed the excess water because it had been parched for a long time. The storm had been loud and strong but relatively little rain had actually fallen. The horses snorted and the coachmen and passengers of the carriages rode along singing merrily. They traveled through Piaski, Wolica, Podlesie and Śniadki approaching Biadolin. They went by the shrines of Sts. Peter and Paul along the right side of the road. Next they approached the bridge over the river Piotrówka and that's when the trouble began. The horses stood rooted to the ground and neither encouragement nor threatening motions could coax them to move on. They heard moaning sounds and began to smell a terrible stench once again. The hair on everyone's heads stood on end. There was no choice but to return to Wojnicz and notify the mayor who was a man of uncommon strength and courage. He was also compassionate to all and quick to offer his assistance to anyone in need.

The people of Wojnicz had known about the transportation of the castle stone to Melsztyn by the devils for quite some time. They immediately suspected that some sort of diabolical accident had occurred in connection with the hurricane during the transporting of the stones.

Once the mayor was awakened he immediate got dressed. The blacksmith brought along his strong chains and accompanied the mayor to the place indicated by the merchant travelers. Taking all precautions, they discovered that the storm caused the devil and his cargo of stone to be dropped near the shrines of Sts. Peter and Paul and St. Stanislaus. One of the largest stones fell near the shrine of St. Stanislaus. It was buried deeply in the ground but the tip could still be seen. Two more fell on the hill behind the Piotrówka River where the devil who was transporting them had tried his best to hang on to them. All in all, the devil had made a pretty good effort. The one thing the devil did not want to have happen was to be seen by those in hell. He'd wanted to prove something but he had failed.

The devil was bewildered and didn't know what fate awaited him. The mayor and blacksmith put him in chains and into the carriage and brought him to Wojnicz. Then they locked the devil up in a hallway where he went to sleep. After a while the devil awoke, broke the chains, and escaped. Later in the day the mayor got curious and went to check on the devil. But there was nothing there, only the chains covered in tar.

The three stones lost in the field near Biadolin were the last ones needed to complete the castle at Melsztyn. The Lord of Melsztyn was very upset that the castle could not be completed. The new moon came again but no more transporting was done. Days passed and nothing happened. But eventually something had to happen. The three stones were missing but that could be remedied with stone from elsewhere. In his heart the Lord of Melsztyn felt that the contract with the witches was broken. He completed his castle and the witches of Bald Mountain did not gain their rights to the Dunajec Valley.

View of the castle ruins in the valley of the Dunajec at Melsztyn

Ruins of residential buildings erected by the defense in Jordanów XVI century

The ruins of the castle tower at the end of XIV century

Meanwhile, the devil who'd escaped from the mayor was out wandering around. He was afraid to go back to hell. Strange things could be seen happening all around him. Some trees fell and the grass became slanted appearing weak and sick. The witches doggedly sought the devil and eventually did catch him. They sentenced him to be punished for scarring the hill behind the Piotrowka River at Biadolin. But what of his fear of going back to hell? Well, he continued walking around the hill in various forms. He was seen as an old man, a gentleman, a wolf, and even a black cat. People would flee from the images of him. Finally, in Krakow, when life had gotten somewhat back to normal, it was decided to put an end to these horrors. There was a statue of Mother Mary with Child on a stone pillar. This column was placed with the other figures at the shrines of Sts Adalbert and Stanislaus, east of St. Margaret's, west of St. Joseph and from the north St. Tekla. Lime trees were planted in the area as well. The two stones that never arrived at the castle Melsztyn were left at the east and west sides of the religious statues and to this day you can still see them. But the devil roamed the area no more.

Sources:
Legends of Wojnicz
Wikipedia

The 3 photos included are from Wikipedia. Permission is granted to copy, distribute and / or modify this image under the terms of GNU Free Documentation License version 1.2 or later, as published by The Free Software Foundation.

Legends of Wojnicz Series:
War Waged Against the Naughty Wives of Wojnicz
Legend of the Stingy Heir
Legend of the White Horse
Legend of the Devil's Transport

The Legend of the White Horse

In the town of Wojnicz, there was a castle surrounded by a water-filled moat and a drawbridge. A gentleman reveler, having had his fill of beer and wine, headed in the direction of his manor house in the village of Wielka Wieś riding his gray horse. He'd spent the whole day at the inn playing and drinking. The sun was getting low behind the mountains to the southwest. Dusk was falling and with it came a thick fog. The gentleman had to leave the town before sunset because that's when they would close the town's gates. Lying just beyond the gates of the city was the outer village of Zamoście which had a brewery, a nearby inn, and a Jew (only Jews could serve alcoholic beverages in Poland in the days of old). He imbibed more at the inn and got to the state where he was feeling so good he had to rely on his horse to find the way home.

A view of Wielka Wies. Arrow points to Manor House.
The road ran by a narrow marsh. Along the way bats flew from the forest, frogs croaked in the swamp, and the sounds of wild beasts could be heard in the distance. Almost immediately in front of the manor house, a howling devil wolf appeared. The horse reared and threw the drunken gentleman off its back such that his leg became entangled with his lance. His leg broke and he would undoubtedly have died, torn apart by the devil wolf, if the housekeepers had not heard the commotion.
Close up of Manor House
Barking dogs awoke everyone in the manor house and the servants came running. Their first sight was a horse with no rider. Then they discovered the drunken gentleman with his broken leg and immediately brought him inside the manor house. A healer was sent for and when he arrived he began treatment right away. The gentleman's recovery took a long time. While he was convalescing, he vowed that if he made a full recovery he would build a shrine to St. George, the patron saint of knights (it's believed that the gentleman probably was a knight). After that, the gentleman's recovery went along more quickly.

The fresh air of the pine forests helped his recovery, as did the healing spring waters. Once he regained his health and strength, the gentleman made good on his vow. At the scene of the accident, he put up a carved stone statue of St. George, which still exists along with a granite relief in the shape of a chapel with columns. Soon afterward the gentleman wanted to pursue his amusements again. He'd become bored with life in the country and wanted to go abroad. In the mean time, he'd been issued a challenge to a duel by an Italian gentleman he'd managed to offend on a previous trip to Italy. He agreed to meet the Italian on neutral ground, in Brazil. Unfortunately, luck ran out for the young master of Wielka Wieś.

He was killed in the duel and his remains were brought home and buried in the family tomb in the cemetery in Wojnicz. He had taken his favorite horse with him to Brazil but the horse was not returned with his remains. A short time later strange things began to happen at the manor house. On a clear night, when the moon was full, just at the stroke of midnight a white horse without a rider appeared in the courtyard in front of the manor house. Silence fell across the forests and the swamp. Even the dogs didn't howl at the moon. The wind stopped blowing and the image of the white horse could clearly be seen. He circled the courtyard three times then disappeared. This phenomenon was observed by the night watchman. He noticed that after the horse disappeared a human figure appeared. He would make his way from the center of the courtyard to the statue of St. George and back uttering dreadful groans. Then he would disappear somewhere in the park. The echo of the groans could be heard in the mountains.

On the manor grounds there was a blacksmith shop. The blacksmith and his helpers shod horses and repaired farm equipment. One day, at noon, when the sun was beating down mercilessly on them a man in gentleman's clothing arrived on a white horse. The blacksmith asked him if he wanted him to look over his horse since it appeared he had been on a long journey and was limping. In the process of the examination, the horse's master was carelessly struck with a hammer in his finger. At that point, the earth opened up and swallowed up the horse and rider and neither were ever seen again.

Sources:
Legends of Wojnicz

Photo 1: (photo of the village of Wielka Wies) Permission is granted to copy, distribute and / or modify this image under the terms of GNU Free Documentation License version 1.2 or later, as published by The Free Software Foundation. Obtained from Wikipedia.
Photo 2: (postcard of manor house) This post card was sent to me by my cousin in Poland. No information given on the photographer.

Legends of Wojnicz Series:
War Waged Against the Naughty Wives of Wojnicz
Legend of the Stingy Heir
Legend of the White Horse
Legend of the Devil's Transport

The Legend of the Stingy Heir

Continuing with the legends of Wojnicz, Poland, next we have two legends concerning the area of the Zamoście estate.

According to one legend, at the site of today's village there used to be three small settlements: Upper Zamoście II, Skrzynki, and Lower Zamoście I. The residents of this area were referred to as Trójnik. The area was ravaged by the Swedes in 1665-1660, and after the war with the Swedes a new city emerged. It was named Wojnicz. The echoes of this legend remain until today as is evidenced by these names of Wojnicz's suburbs.

Another legend tells of a stingy estate owner and it goes like this. Those that lived long ago in Wojnicz reported that the owner of the Zamoście estate was a very stingy man. He never did anything to help anyone and never shared what he had with others. Servants and local residents were very fearful of robbers, known as the Madeja. Robbery was severely punished back in those days. Some who were caught were even punished/tortured on the "Madejowe bed". But not the owner of the Zamoście estate. Even though he was known to put things in his grain to make it heavier so that when he sold it at market it would bring in more money, he was never punished. He never changed his cunning and stingy ways and eventually he died.

The "Madejowe bed"

After his death, every night at midnight in barns and graineries in the area of the Zamoście estate, the doors would open and then close with a big bang. People would check to see if thieves were responsible but no one encountered any. Dogs calmly walked around the area not at all alarmed. Time went by, years passed.

One moonlit night a watchman went to work guarding some cattle. He saw a white figure of a man standing nearby. Frightened, he retreated a ways and from afar he asked, "Who's there?" He heard a voice respond, "I am a former owner. I've repent now for 70 years for my stingy ways. Oh if only someone would take pity and order 7 masses. Then my penance would end. Otherwise, I will still suffer for 70 more years." Then the figure disappeared into the moonlight.

The watchman went totally gray with fear. In the morning he told his master about his night time adventure. The masses were ordered at the church of St. Lawrence in Wojnicz and from that moment on the night-knocking in the area of the Zamoście estate ceased.

Sources:
Legends of Wojnicz
Madejowe Bed
"Deluge" Invasion of Poland by the Swedes

Photo 1: Swedish King Charles X Gustav in skirmish with Polish Tartars near Warsaw 1656 by Johann Phillip Lemke (1631 - 1711). In the public domain.
Photo 2: Poland, Zywiec - Museum of Torture - torture bed (so called Madejowe Bed). This file may be copied and distributed, and to make derivative works provided that an appropriate information about the author and provided to distribute a file under the same license, or under a similar license or compatible with CC-BY-SA. Contributor who supplied the photo was "Merlin".

Legends of Wojnicz Series:
War Waged Against the Naughty Wives of Wojnicz
Legend of the Stingy Heir
Legend of the White Horse
Legend of the Devil's Transport

War Waged Against the Naughty Wives of Wojnicz

October means many things to many people. To me it means National Family History Month, Polish American Heritage Month, and Halloween. In honor of all three, I'm going to take this opportunity to share with you some legends of the town of Wojnicz, Poland. Wojnicz is the ancestral village of one branch of my family (Mizera). It's in southern Poland, west southwest of the city of Tarnów along the road (E40) to Kraków. I've written about Wojnicz before, a number of times.

A Tribute to My Maternal Ancestors, Part I
A Tribute to My Maternal Ancestors, Part II (History of Wojnicz)
Snapshot 1908, Galician Partition of Poland (includes YouTube video)
Recipient of a Random Act of Kindness
The Good Earth, Poland

This time around I'm going to tell a series of tales of Wojnicz. These legends go back a long way and have entertained and educated many over the hundreds of years they've existed. Wojnicz is a very old town and the first of the legends takes us back to the years 1015-1018 and a war waged against the "naughty" women of the town...

The best known of Wojnicz's legends tells of the fight between the naughty wives of Wojnicz and their husbands. This "old wives" war may have given the town it's name. The fight of the unfaithful wives was alleged to have occurred in the eleventh century during the rein of Bolesław the Bold. In 1015, Bolesław went to Kiev to restore the throne to Ruthenian Prince Svyatopolk Vladimirovich (Bolesław's son in law) who was dethroned by his brother Yaroslav. After Bolesław returned to Poland, Svyatopolk's brother dethroned him again. So Bolesław went back to Kiev in 1018 with his Polish knights and this time stayed a longer time.

While they were gone, as the legend goes, the knight's wives took lovers. When the knights learned of this, they began to arbitrarily leave Bolesław's army in Kiev and rushed home to punish their adulterous wives. When Bolesław returned home, he punished both his wife (this would have been his 4th wife, Oda, who he was married to from 1018 until his death in 1025) and the knights who left him in Kiev.

Feeling threatened, the errant wives and the men they dallied with escaped into the castle 3 kilometers from the city. Armed with swords, spears, bows and axes, they desperately defended themselves from Bolesław and the knight's attacks. Many of them were dishonored, many wounded. Those who were killed were buried on a hill behind town. In the end, the women's defense was broken. The vindictive husbands severely punished their unfaithful wives. Many of them were killed in a cruel manor. The mountain on which the men and women defended themselves was named "Maiden's Mountain" in memory of those events. It is said that the castle warriors of the Tarnowski family along with Bolesław, decided to found a city on the spot to commemorate that extraordinary war and they called it Wojnicz ("Wojna" means "war" in Polish).

Sources: Legends of Wojnicz
Bolesław I Chrobry

Photo 1: Portrait of Bolesław the Brave done by Jan Matejko. Image from Wikipedia, is in the Public Domain.
Photo 2: Bolesław the Brave Entering Conquered Kiev by Jan Matejko. Image from Wikipedia, is in the Public Domain.

Legends of Wojnicz Series:
War Waged Against the Naughty Wives of Wojnicz
Legend of the Stingy Heir
Legend of the White Horse
Legend of the Devil's Transport

The Good Earth, Poland

My ancestors all came from Poland. Yep, that's right, all of them.

Even though Poland is largely an agrarian society, it was still a bit of a surprise to me to learn that all of my ancestors were farmers. Yep, that's right, all of them.

It took me a while and a good many dictionaries and translation guides to realize that fact because there are so many terms used in Polish vital records to describe "farmers". Here's a list of Polish terms for "farmers" that I've run across: [ ]= Latin equivalent

1. chałupnik: a farmer with at least a house but little or no land
   
2. gospodarz: farmer (one fairly well off owning his own land)
3. kątnik: a farmer or worker on a large estate
4. kmieć [cmetho]: a generally self-supporting peasant with at least one łan of land
5. kolonist: settler, colonist, farmer
6. komornik [inquilinus]: tenant farmer, a farmer who lived with another and owned no cottage or land of their own; may also refer to elderly parents after they retire and live in their children's house
7. mleczarz: dairyman
8. młeczarz: thresher
   
9. ogrodnik: peasant farmer, one who worked a garden-size plot rather than a full-sized farm
10. ogrodowy: gardener
    
11. okupnik [rusticus]: tenant farmer
12. oracz: farmer
13. parobek: farm hand, generally landless farm worker on an estate
14. pasterz [ovilio]: shepherd
15. półkmieć [semi-cmetho]: a peasant farmer on 1/2 łan of land
16. rataj: a zagrodnik who also worked at a large estate farm
17. rolnik [agricola]: farmer
18. świniopas [suarius]: swineherd
19. wyrobnik rolny: farm hand
    
20. włościanin: peasant farmer
21. zagrodnik [hortulanus]: a peasant farmer who owned a house with a small piece of land and garden and usually a small stock of farm animals
22. zagrodnik z roli: a farmer who owned a house, farm buildings, animals, and farmed a medium-sized plot of land

Whew! Ya see what I'm saying here? The Poles have more terms for farming than the Eskimos have for snow! (The Eskimo thing is a myth by the way.) And this list doesn't include the words used in the German and Russian partitions of Poland.

Most of my ancestors came from the Austrian partition of Poland but one branch was from the Russian section. The terms I've seen most often are actually the Latin ones, recorded in Catholic parish baptismal, marriage, and death records.

I've often wondered what types of crops my ancestors planted, how many and what types of animals they owned, and how much land they possessed. I'm sure there were records of these things at one time but I have no idea if they still exist, where they might be held, or if public access is allowed. I would be an Ancestry subscriber for life if those folks could find and publish these sorts of records from my family's ancestral villages in Poland!

Even without more specific records, it's obvious that my family's ties to the good earth are strong and go back as far as records were kept. Here is just one example of occupational notations on the baptismal record of my great grandfather, Szymon Lipa, born on October 2, 1843 in Bobrowa, Poland.
You will notice under the column "PARENTES", "PARENS ET CONDITIO EJUS" the last word is "rusticus" as is the last word in the column "PARENTES", "MATER". This tells me that my 3rd great grandparents, Joannis (Jan) Lipa and his wife Sophia Łanucha Lipa were tenant farmers. To the right of that under the "PATRINI" (Godparents), "CONDITIO" column we see the terms "inquilinus" (a farmer who lived with another) for Mathis Skowron (Godfather) and "hortulanus" (a peasant farmer who owned a house with a small piece of land and some farm animals) for Anna (Godmother), wife of Joannis (Jan) Grzyb.

I only have one photo of a relative in Poland tilling the good earth. This is Adolf and Krystyna Mizera at their farm near Wojnicz, Poland. Photo taken between 1976-1998.

Even though all my ancestors were farmers of the good earth back in Poland, my grandparents and great grandparents who immigrated here to the U.S.A. gave up farming for the city life in Detroit, Michigan. However, the farming techniques they learned from their parents and grandparents came in handy when they planted Victory Gardens in their back yards during WWI and WWII.
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Sources Used:

Polish Roots, by Rosemary A. Chorzempa. Genealogical Publishing Co., Baltimore, MD. 1993.
In Their Words, Volume I: Polish, by Jonathan D. Shea & William F. Hoffman. Language and Lineage Press, New Britain, CT. 2000.
Translation Tips, by William F. Hoffman. Notes to a talk given at the 2001 Fall Conference of the Polish Genealogical Society of America.
Genealogical Word List, Polish from the Family History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah. 1990.
Genealogical Word List, Latin from the Family History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah. 1990.