The next morning we walked up to the church to watch the funeral procession arrive at the church. When the church bells stopped ringing we entered the church and climbed up an old stone circular staircase to sit in the balcony. I had a wonderful view of the church during this mass attended by so many in the village. Again, the singing was beautiful, but much sadder in tone. Immediately after mass, the procession continued into the churchyard where the coffin was placed over the graveside for the final blessing.
On this day we discovered some information about my family. My grandparents were married in 1896 when Stanely was 25 at the time and Aniela was 16. When the bride was that young, the parents had to give permission to marry. I remember Dutchie telling me about this. I also discovered that Stanislaw had at least 3 siblings, maybe 4: 2 brothers (Wincenty and Michal) and sister Victoria. We may have found another sister Antonia, but I’m not sure yet. I was told that Michal had at least one son, Leopold. He died in 1971 and we found his grave at the cemetery (with a photo!). We immediately called Jozef the bell maker and asked about Leopold’s family, but sadly there was no relation that Jozef knew of. Furthermore, Jozef told us that this Kulawiak family may have moved the the United States! I’ll look for them when I return home. On a good note, we may have solved the Pagac Stafira mystery. Stanley’s mother was Rosalina Pagac, and HER mother’s maiden was Stafira. There are many Stafira’s here in the village, but I have not seen any signs of Pagac families. We have not had any success in finding any Pagac’s or Stafira familes that are related to me yet.
Success!!! Congratulations on finding your family’s records 🙂
My grandmother came From Pekelnik, She was a Krafcik, her mother a Rychlik and her sister a Stafira. My email is [email protected]. My name is Jeff vaganek. Please write me back. Thank you