When my grandmother, Genowefa Brzoska Bojanowski, died in 1983, I inherited a desk full of cancelled checks and copies of bill receipts for the past ten years or so of her life. Amongst these checks and receipts, I found a small "treasure trove" of papers. My grandmother had kept both of her marriage licenses, her divorce decree, her children's baptismal certificates, and several wills which were no longer valid.The most exciting of these treasures were several pages of handwritten notes on a yellow legal pad. These notes were her memories of living in Poland and coming to the United States as a nine-year-old child. I was twenty years old when she died and, even then, had a great love for my Polish heritage. Thank God, I also was smart enough to hold onto these things!
My grandmother was 73 when she wrote this surprisingly detailed story of her recollections as a young child in Poland and her voyage across the ocean aboard the SS Cassel. I always knew her memory was excellent to the day she died, but I hadn't realized just how good it was until I read her papers!
I'd like to share exerpts of this story with you now. Enjoy!
-- Marie Dallas
If you would like to skip to a specific topic Genia wrote about:
THE SHRINE AT CZESTOCHOWAI was born in Warsaw, Poland on March 12, 1905. My earliest memory is of a pilgrimage we took to the Shrine of Czestochowa on Jasna Gora when I was only two years old. It was just before we moved from Warsaw to the country. My father was carrying me, and my mother was carrying my infant brother, Edmond. As we crossed a bridge over a river to reach the Shrine, I remember catching sight of the water sparkling through the trestles.
There were people sitting or laying on the ground along the road, and at the time, I didn’t understand that they were cripples or people with other ailments who must have been seeking a cure from the Holy Shrine. We had to walk up the hill to reach the church, but I don’t remember seeing the inside of it.
THE COUNTRY HOUSE
In the country, we lived in a beautiful house. The rooms were large. There was one for entertaining, a kitchen, and a bedroom on the ground floor. Upstairs there was another large bedroom and a room with a chimney in the center. This chimney room, as I called it, was used to cure and smoke hams, bacon, and sausages after the hogs were killed. Outside of these two rooms was a veranda which circled the house. There was a high fence surrounding the house and courtyard which had a large gate at the entrance where the horse-drawn carriages entered the property. There was also a smaller one elsewhere. We had a large orchard with fruit and nut-bearing trees. At the end of the orchard was a store that my father rented to a Jewish family. This store was beside a road that intersected the main road and ran alongside a cemetery.
Across the road from our house was a church. I used to go there often with my father to visit the priest. My father and he were friends, along with another man who was a judge. They used to meet at the rectory to plan their hunting trips for wild hares. I remember the priest did not like that my father rented property to the Jewish family, and he asked my father to terminate their lease. My father complied and we went to live at the store. My grandmother’s sister and her husband and children moved into our house.
ABOUT HER FATHER
My father came from a well-educated family. When he finished school as a young man, he was called to serve in the Czar’s army as all young men were. His older brother, Antoni, was also called to serve for the third time. Poland was occupied by Russia, and only one son was required to serve at a time. When the family went before the board, they asked my grandfather which son he wanted to have enter service. My father volunteered to serve three years for each of them as was required, because his brother was in the seminary, studying to become a priest. Ironically, before my uncle was ordained he came home to visit and met his future wife. He married and had sixteen children!
My father was an engineer for the railroad. As a result of his job, he traveled to different countries and often brought back gifts for me. I remember him bringing navel oranges from Italy and dolls from Germany. For the summer of 1907 he became a Country Gentleman, and we had carriages and carts and servants. My father employed a nurse to take care of my brother and me and a maid to do the housework for my mother. My father’s younger brother, Symforian, was a surveyor. I don’t remember very much about him or their sister, Rose. We didn’t see very much of her, since we lived quite a distance from her family.
ABOUT HER MOTHER
My mother was a clothing designer and a seamstress. She liked to dress me like a doll in frilly clothes, and she would punish me for getting my dress dirty. I guess I wanted to be like other children, so I would sneak out to see the other children on the road playing in the mud. I would change clothes with another little girl, who was very happy to prance around in my dresses while I was thrilled to make mud pies.
THE DEATHS OF HER BROTHERS
In April of 1908, my mother’s brother, Ignacy, got married. He and his young wife came to live with us. During that same year, my mother gave birth to another son, Czeslaw. When he was nine months old, both he and Edmond got sick and died within one week of each other. The loss of my beloved Edmond was difficult for me. I was heartbroken and imagined that he came back to me. He stood beside my bed and told me not to cry.
My brother Tadeusz was born four months after Edmond and Czeslaw had died. I was sick at that time, and I remember wanting to get into bed with my mother so I could have a baby of my own to replace Edmond. I still mourned his death. However, I got better, and my grief subsided. I had a new baby brother, and I was once again a happy four-year-old.
HER AUNT HAS A MISCARRIAGE
At about this time, my uncle’s wife was thrown from a sleigh and later suffered a miscarriage. I was a nosy child, and I remember peeking to see what was going on during all the commotion. I saw the doctor carry away buckets of what looked to me like blood. Years later I learned she had hemorrhaged. I got caught snooping that night and was spanked and sent to bed. The next year, my aunt gave birth to a son. When he was nine months old, he vomited during the night and choked to death.
A SLEIGH RIDE
My sister, Waclawa, was born in December of 1910. I remember visiting my grandfather for Christmas the next year. It looked like the whole world was covered with snow. My father put a feather bed into the sleigh and bundled my brother, my sister, my mother and me inside. My father and the driver sat in front under a fur-lined blanket, wearing fur-lined coats, hats, and boots. The snow glistened in the bright moonlight. It was a frigid night. I remember sticking my head out of the feather bed and my mother scolded me, telling me my nose would freeze off in the cold. The bridges and frozen creeks were covered with snow, and a few times my father and the driver had to walk ahead to see where the bridges were before driving over them. To this day, that memory gives me a great deal of pleasure.
THE RUSSIAN TROOPS
In 1912, my uncle Ignacy went to America, leaving behind his wife. She stayed with us. The Czar was beginning to mobilize an army, and since my father was in the Reserves, he was called for maneuvers. He was away for about six weeks. I remember the soldiers riding down the main road on their beautiful horses as they came into the area for maneuvers. We called these soldiers Cossacks. Everyone hid their teenaged daughters and young wives from these men. If the women were in sight when the Cossacks would ride through our village, they would grab hold of them and take them to their camp to rape them. At seven years of age, I thought this was exciting how they would sweep the women up onto their horses and carry them off. Little did I know what happened to these poor women.